Tag Archives: lifestyle

Quick Healthy Snacks

April 24, 2012 admin Leave a comment

The food is available online (http://www.lifestylefoods.com) where you can mix and match and create your own personalized pack of snacks. Or if you are in the New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania area, you can find the products in 7-11, Sheetz, and Royal Farms locations throughout New Jersey, in a few Hudson News locations including JFK Airport, and most Giant locations across Pennsylvania. There are soups, salads, snack packs, breakfasts, stand along snacks – more than enough choices to keep the pickiest of eaters happy.

Look at these low calorie counts !
Apple Wedges – 30 calories
Shred Snack – Chicken strips and cheddar cheese cubes – 175 calories
Essential Snack – Mini bagel with cream cheese, hard boiled egg, apple wedges – 200 calories
Manhattan Snack – Hummus, pita bread, carrots, cheddar cheese – 240 calories
Hollywood Snack – Honey wheat pretzels, apple wedges, grapes, cheddar cheese – 200 calories
Glam Snack – Apple wedges, grapes, almonds – 150 calories
Mac Snack – Mac and cheese cubes, grapes – 110 calories
Obsessed Snack – Greek yogurt and honey graham sticks – 150 calories

Head on over to Lifestyle Foods (http://www.lifestylefoods.com) and grab some snack foods that are guilt free !

Product Reviews, Salads, Snacks, Soups

Lifestyle Foods Does it Right !!

April 19, 2012 admin Leave a comment

We all know how hard it can be to find prepared foods and snacks that are good for us. Well, Lifestyle Foods has some awesome products that solve that problem – all are healthy options, and all are prepared and ready to grab out of the fridge making them just as convenient as grabbing those cookies or that full of fat hot pocket from the freezer – – healthy eating just got a lot easier ! With so many options (and all of them tasting GREAT), you could live off these little meals and snacks. And that is precisely what I’ve done for a few days as I’ve been taste testing and reviewing all the different options. My goodness, there are so many things to choose from and one tastes better than the next. They definitely get a thumbs up rating from me !

I would love to see this product line on shelves in every food store, in every convenience store, and in all colleges across the nation – how great it would be if college students all had easy access to prepared foods that they can eat on the run or place in their dorm refrigerators for easy access to healthy snacks.

The quality is stupendous, the taste is great, the combinations are well thought out, the packaging is minimal (which is an added bonus in my mind!) and the calorie count is way low. Add a piece of fruit and some nuts as a dessert to one of the salads and you have a complete meal. Or instead of 2 slices of pizza next meal, have one slice and one of these quick salads next to it. Eating healthier is so much easier when great options are a few steps away and READY TO EAT.

Below you’ll see a list of all the products I’ve tried and some misc. comments – even if you don’t have time to read the info, please do yourself and your family a favor and grab some of these items. When they are there in the fridge ready to eat, you will find that you grab them. I have, my husband has, my teenage daughter has – and we all feel better because of it !

SOUP + SALAD

The soups are fresh and tasty and if they were packaged separately, I would be buying them up ! They do not taste like Campbells’s canned soup – they are fresh and scrumptious. The salad dressings appear to be low fat options and more than enough is provided, even for dressing hogs like me.

My favorite here is the Tomato Basil soup – oh my goodness ! Just a little chunky; actually the perfect texture. Super taste.

The only thing here is I would recommend NOT using the cardboard as the microwave stand – if it opens up after you grab the soup, you could end up with hot soup all over the place 🙁 And you certainly don’t want to waste even a spoonful of the yummy soup !

Chicken Noodle+ Caesar – 120 calories

Vegetable and Garden – 90 calories

Tomato Basil and Garden – 120 calories

SALADS

The salad dressings appear to be low fat options and more than enough is provided, even for dressing hogs like me. The dressings are very flavorful.

The chicken salad is white meat only and for only 190 calories you are FULL when you are done – the portioning is fantastic. The tuna salad is equally as fresh and quality tuna is definitely used. The chicken in the cobb salad has a nice little kick to it – this could actually use a little more lettuce for all the add ins and dressing you get.

Taco Salad – 160 calories

Caesar with Chicken – 220 calories

Garden with Italian – 80 calories

Garden with Ranch – 120 calories

BLT with Ranch – 200 calories

Tuna Salad and Romaine – 210 calories

Chicken Salad and Romaine – 190 calories

Cobb with Ranch – 220 calories

SNACKS

All the apple wedges are crisp and fresh without any flavor of the agent used to keep them from browning (ascorbic acid).

Veggies are sweet, cheese is mild and fresh, dips are zesty – great snack attack packs.

Apple Wedges – 30 calories

Shred Snack – Chicken strips and cheddar cheese cubes – 175 calories

Essential Snack – Mini bagel with cream cheese, hard boiled egg, apple wedges – 200 calories

Manhattan Snack – Hummus, pita bread, carrots, cheddar cheese – 240 calories

Hollywood Snack – Honey wheat pretzels, apple wedges, grapes, cheddar cheese – 200 calories

Glam Snack – Apple wedges, grapes, almonds – 150 calories

Mac Snack – Mac and cheese cubes, grapes – 110 calories

Obsessed Snack – Greek yogurt and honey graham sticks – 150 calories

BREAKFASTS

The oatmeal was so hearty and such a grand portion ! I might add a little honey or nuts to make it even better. But this is a great little package even as is.

Awake Snack – Granola, apples, grapes, trail mix – 170 calories

Oatmeal and Apple – Whole apple, steel cut oatmeal (with turbinado sugar and raisins to add in)- 230 calories

Lifestyle Foods (http://www.lifestylefoods.com) have snacks and mini meals to satisfy your sweet tooth or your craving for savory food – they have it all. They provide nutritious, ready to eat, delicious snacks that compliment a healthy lifestyle.

400 Calorie Meals - the plan

The 400 Calories or Less Plan

December 22, 2009 admin Leave a comment

Many nutritionists and dieticians recommend eating several small meals throughout the course of the day. It helps to keep your metabolism running and also keeps your body from going into starvation mode which totally defeats any plan (losing weight or weight maintenance).

I’ve decided that my new LIFESTYLE (not a diet!!) needs to include a meal plan that I can stick with and one that will show me results. Over the past 6 months I have been eating 400 calories or less for each meal (3 main meals and a snack) and seeing great results. I am losing weight and I just plain feel better. I know that in order to maintain a healthy weight, I need to stick with this plan. So I have created recipes and meal plans that ensure I am not feeling hungry all the time and truthfully, I rarely feel deprived (except for when I see people eating multiple slices of pizza when I can only have one – ah, pizza !!) . This plan combats cravings of all sorts because I can eat a little bit of just about anything.

Now, I could sit and eat 400 calories worth of cheese doodles as a meal (my dear friend told me this actually worked for her at one point in her life), but the better thing to do is make sure you are eating balanced meals.

I make sure that my day includes proteins (meat, fish, beans), veggies and fruit, high calcium dairy and I could not live without carbs. I now eat whole grain breads and pastas, but they are still in my meals in smaller amounts – I could not live without them.

I also add in monounsaturated fats (these are the good fats) with several of my meals each day…the theory being that they a: help bad fats retreat from your body and b: they help you feel more satisfied. Examples of monounsaturated fats are olive oil, olives, avocados, nuts and seeds, dark chocolate – – and while high in calories, I do notice that when I skip them to add in extra pasta or bread instead, I don’t see as good weight loss results that week.

And finally, here are a few things that I have learned along the way:

Drink lotsa water: I am not good at this – I have to struggle to get down 3 glasses of water a day. I try and entice myself by adding stuff to a pitcher of water and giving it a bit of natural flavor. One day I add lemon or lime slices (orange is nice too). The next I add some sliced fresh ginger. The next I add some spearmint leaves and a few drops of mint extract. If I keep it changed up, I find I am more apt to want a glass.

Sit and savor your food: Taste each bit that goes into your mouth. Smell it. Look at it. Don’t just woof it down in front of a TV because before you know it, it’s gone and you’re wondering where it went and you are still feeling hungry. I know it sounds corny, but it is sooooooo true !

Split up the snacks in a different way each day and according to how your body feels: I always try to eat my 3 main meals the same times each day. But my snacks….times change and so does how I split them up. One day I may be hungrier in the mid afternoon and have a 200 calorie snack before I start cooking dinner (so I am not picking while cooking) and then have my other 200 calories in the evening. Some days I have a lighter dinner and then want a heavier snack in the evening. Some days I am dying of hunger at 10 am even though I ate a good breakfast at 8. Be flexible with yourself and divvy up those snacks thoughtfully and they will help you get through the day !

Cheat day: Everybody needs a cheat day. I plan one in once a week. I have gone hog crazy and eaten wings and several slices of pizza on the same day – and then I end up paying for it. After months of a healthy diet, my body does not know what to do when bombarded with a lot of fat and I end up with stomach distress. So I have learned and now I try and keep it a little more sane. Instead of going crazy, I use my cheat day to have a glass of wine (or 2 or 3) without having to put it into my calorie counter. And since I often go out on cheat day, it is more just a day to give myself a break from cooking, but I try to order sensibly and not stuff myself.

Eating out: It is very hard to find a place out where you can get a meal that fits into 400 calories. Asian restaurants are a good bet, especially if you stick with fish dishes and stay away from fried egg rolls. You can find calories counts for many chain restaurants and it’s very discouraging. If you’re a restaurateur and want a partner for a ‘healthy food’ restaurant, let me know !! 🙂

Count your calories: I use a mobile phone app. A plain old notebook and pencil will do just as well, though ! When you are actively counting your calories, you are much more apt to stay within them. Yes, even that one bite off your kid’s plate has to be accounted for in the log 🙂